Snake Charmer, 2nd Run
by Zeit's Library
Summary: "Yes. I will die. And I will die. And I will die. And I will die again. A hundred times maybe. And I will always return: always." One-Shot


"I hope you know you're interrupting my beauty sleep. With all of that time traveling, I deserve proper rest in my own bed. Don't you agree?"

He didn't. There were few things Thorium ever said that Omri Usoa agreed with: especially at an hour were he would prefer to be asleep. In fact, it was like a particular bad nightmare for both to be stuck in a tight, windowless space with the other. Yet, deep underneath Rekenber HQ here they were: stuck together.

"Like you were sleeping."

"Is it my fault that I wasn't born hideous?"

"Sounds more like an opinion than any fact." Omri sniped from underneath his hood. "You look ridiculous without your hair tied back, by the way."

"I didn't know you paid so much attention to my hair. Is that all you look at?" Thorium wasn't smiling. In fact he seemed bitchier than ever as he turned to Omri, his eyes squeezed shut and perturbed. "You're starting to sound like a dirty old man _Father_."

"That's almost funny coming from you."

"Just keep your eyes under that foul hood of yours." The Scholar murmured, getting a slight chuckle out of Omri. "You're not going to waste my entire night are you?"

"Relax princess. I wouldn't have called you down here unless the Corporation needed something."

"If you had been the one to call I would've never came." Thorium noted dryly, his haughty bite still there but more subtle. Slowly but surely he was recollecting himself; the buzz of being waken up and brought here replaced by his curiosity. Omri never hid his hatred and disgust for as long as he remembered.

"Patience."

"...You would say that." Thorium huffed, his eyes parting for a bit to get a better look at his fingernails. "And I'm not the patient type. Hey, are you even listening?"

"No. Unlike you, Thorium, I can stand my own thoughts for more than five seconds without having to listen to you."

The room finally went silent. No more huffing, no more preening and no more whining. Complete and total quiet covered the both of them. Something was off...about all of this. Maybe it was just being forced to sit in a room and share the same air with someone he couldn't stand. Maybe it was the fact that he just didn't feeling like smiling.

_What?_

Time crawled ungratefully up until now and still Omri stood there, brooding. Nothing changed: not even the little bits of dust that had been hanging around the air since he got there. Thorium, for whatever reason, just couldn't shake the pit that had gnawed through his insides. Taking orders, being quiet, it all felt like he was simply following along; heeding control of the situation to...that guy.

"What was my job again?"

"Hmm?"

"You said Rekenber wanted me down here for some job right?" The pink Scholar asked slowly, very carefully, almost politely. "What it is?"

"...You'll see when he gets here."

"...You won't tell me."

"It isn't something you have to know." Omri stated almost matter-of-factually. "Know your place Thorium."

"Oh I do _Father_. Do you know yours?"

"What?"

Thorium got to his feet, hints of his familiar smile playing at the edges of his thin lips. Of course, in the back of his mind, he knew that if this went wrong it would only give Usoa fuel to force his higher ups into 'rehabilitating' him. It was something the older Scholar had been itching for the moment he and Thorium crossed paths. Before he could give it any serious thought his hands had thrown themselves at Omri's hood.

"What are you doing?" Usoa struggled, trying to pull the pink Scholar away from him. Thorium, however, wouldn't relent. His grip tightened as Omri soon found he had nowhere to go.

"Usually you have this off to try and prove some pathetic point."

"Let me go!"

"Why? Afraid to show me your face?" Thorium taunted, pushing past Omri's flailing and knocking the hood off his head revealing...nothing. Nothing. His eyes, nose, every feature that Thorium looked down upon and mocked...it was all gone: replaced by a thin, pale layer of skin wrapping across where his face was once.

He wasn't afraid: Thorium didn't get afraid. But he also couldn't have his hands, his body, close to this..this thing. He pulled away, backpedaling as Usoa unbuckled the cloak and let it fall off his shoulders.

"Am I that repulsive to you?" He somehow said clearly, although it was literally impossible. "Omri" chuckled, and with a blink of the Experiment's eyes he was gone. It didn't make sense. This could only be an illusion...that had to be it, but he couldn't snap out of it. And from his own memory, Usoa wasn't into those type of games. If somehow had managed to drag him into this warped dream it couldn't been him, could it? A firm slap didn't move the room from out of his vision. Another only brought about the sound of stretching and ripping from above him.

_What is this?_ Thorium' eyes widening as shreds of black cloth fell to the ground. He turned upward, to the ceiling just as a long, cool hand grabbed him around the throat. His feet left the floor as he was pulled closer and closer to Omri as his limbs extended further away from his body. The thought of a bolt came to mind as a piercing howl left Usoa's empty face. Thorium let his hands drop to his sides, watching as Usoa's sides split and another set of hands pull away from his stomach. It was enough to take his breath away; especially when they jetted out and seized his wrists.

"The Child who would play God." The skin covering the lower half of Omri's face slowly split open along the lines of his mouth: a thick, black ooze began to flow down his chin. "You are not smiling."

He didn't wait for an answer, instead Omri pushed off the ceiling and forced Thorium into the opposite wall. The lights in his eyes were flickering; his mind bending along the lines of this 'reality'. A moment of doubt came and went, as he was far from ready to accept even the notion of fear. Even as this monster squeezed his neck with lethal intent.

"Still struggling?" Omri asked raggedly, tightening his grip on Thorium's neck to emphasize his point. He could barely get a few breaths in along the edges, but he fought it. He had to. It was either that or let _Father_ choke him out. "I'm starting to think you really are afraid of dying..."

"Afraid? Only someone like you would think that about me."

He should've been frustrated. The real Omri would've been. This one laughed, right in his face, right before hurling him to the ground. Thorium barely got to his feet as a loud thud announced Omri's arrival. His head barely twisted towards the door he came in before Omri was there; his elongated body blocking off the only exit.

"Death smiles at you Helios." Omri snarled, creeping his way back to the floor and walking on all legs back to Thorium. "Won't you smile back?"

Smile: heh. It was something he had been trying to do since coming to this place. With only a handful of smirks at best, Thorium couldn't muster up the energy now: not while trying to figure out what to do next. Illusion or not, handing over his life so easily just seemed...foolish. _But why?_ Thorium wondered, letting his defense grow more and more lax. _If I die, then what? What will I become? I wonder...what my next life will look like..._

Thorium was not accustomed to pain. Or new experiences really. He could only feel a sudden pulling in his chest as one of Omri's hands ran through it. For a moment, a fleeting moment, a sense of victory seemed evident on his expressionless face. That feeling, the final blow to this body; its indescribable.

"My my." A trickle of blood ran down the sides of Thorium's mouth "You've gotten much more fun since I last saw you doll."

A long, steady breath left Thorium as he pulled himself up Omri's arm; blood gushing down his body as his smile began to twist and widen. His crimson eyes brimmed with sadistic joy, gleaming like hellish rubies in the darkness. His skin was going cold, pale: the life rushing out of him...and yet he couldn't have been more thrilled with this feeling.

"I'm smiling _Father_." Thorium's fingers dug into Omri's shoulders as he closed the distance between them: a long, forked tongue leaving his mouth and flickering just in front of the oozing mouth of the monster. "Smile with me?"

One of Omri's over-stretched limbs reared upward, preparing for another attack as a long, low hiss came from Thorium, a flash of fangs jutted from his mouth before they sunk into the monster's neck. Omri grunted audibly; humanly.

"Did that hurt?" Thorium smirked innocently against his clammy skin. "I haven't even gotten started yet..."

"You're still going to die here..."

"Yes. I will die." The pink Scholar pulled away, keeping a hold of Omri as the ground underneath them shifted. The smile now sat cemented on his face, unshaken as thousands upon thousand of sharp, white-hot hands clawed into their legs and dragged them both down. "And I will die. And I will die. And I will die again. A hundred times maybe. And I will always return: always."

Thorium's body had grown so cold than he barely felt another limb jet through his stomach. His glazed, venomous eyes took in the blank, morbid face in front of him. Everything felt numb, distant...alive. Out of the corners of his eyes as the arms reached upward and grabbed the limbs attached to his body. "I'm not afraid...of what's next..."

Omri shriek rang through his ears, splitting his conscious into a bright light that knocked him into an upright position. His body shook, a cold sweat masking his face that he glared around the room; shadows stretching far from the large TV on the opposite wall. He had, he thought, just closed his eyes for a moment. It certainly didn't feel like it had been very long.

_...2:33 AM_

"Fell asleep playing that thing again?" A familiar voice called out to him, one that he did not want to answer. He just needed a minute to recollect himself; that's all. Quietly the young male took the laptop that had somehow managed not to topple off his lap and placed it gently onto the coffee table in front of him: the top-hatted sprite still sitting benignly on the fake grass exactly where he left him before closing the game altogether.

**066Dysprosium: Hey. You back yet?**

"And that would be your druggie boyfriend right?" The voice called out again just after the annoying alert. Finally, after wiping the sweat off with the front of his t-shirt he turned, his eyes narrowing on the dry face of his roommate. Unlike he, who still had on his normal wear, Omri had went ahead and changed into his usual sleeping décor of all black: black tank top, black pants save for his glasses and the bottle of tea resting in his hand. He could barely stand the guy full awake; it wouldn't do him any good trying to reason with him half-sleep.

"Jealous? Its not my fault I practically god on Earth and nobody can stand your diseased face." He chuckled, grinning in that oh-so obnoxious way that riled Omri every time. It managed to get a slight crawl through the other's skin before he took a long drink of tea."What are you doing up anyway?"

"You were talking in your damn sleep. If I had been asleep you would've woken me up anyway."

Okay maybe it had been a bit longer than he intended. Instead of bothering to appear concern over his own state of mind he instead stretched his arms over his head and reclined as far as he could on the couch, his eyes locked on the other. "Awww, I didn't know you cared. Do you want to hold me while I try and go back to sleep? C'mon. There's plenty of space over here if you want to."

"...You're such a weird whore." Omri muttered finally, often his only solid answer to his roommate's randomness. After taking another drink and watching him place the laptop back into his lap, Omri left him for his own blissful side of their apartment, no longer really concerned with how he had been just a few minutes earlier. "Night Helios."

"Night Usoa."

* * *

A/N: Thorium/Helios Briseus belongs to HaFumi/dokisoradoki. Dysprosium/Orion Erebus belongs to SinfulShinrai/Resalan. This is a non-canon story written purely as a request. For more on these characters and RO fan goodness, check out the Project [A]esir website (link's on the profile page).


End file.
